{"id":8689,"date":"2021-08-24T12:10:03","date_gmt":"2021-08-24T16:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/?p=8689"},"modified":"2021-08-24T12:27:18","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T16:27:18","slug":"crypto-effect-trading-altcoins-edge-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/2021\/08\/24\/crypto-effect-trading-altcoins-edge-addiction","title":{"rendered":"The crypto effect: Trading altcoins at the edge of addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A<\/span>m I the only person who sees cryptocurrency charts when I shut my eyes, hovering just beyond the limits of my focus like an old TV set that\u2019s been permanently burned in by a paused video game?<\/span><\/p>\n

Am I alone in spotting elements of token names, logos and symbols in food packaging at the supermarket?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Or are you also catching fleeting glimpses of crypto candlesticks hidden among the everyday objects before you or just beyond the edge of your vision?<\/span><\/p>\n

These neon mirages scorched into my retina, the byproducts of squinting endlessly at jagged crypto charts during long COVID-19 lockdowns, inspired my NFT series \u201c<\/span>The Crypto Effect<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

These blockchain-inspired works of visual art are my homage to the mental health rollercoaster on which decentralized finance took many of us during the coronavirus crisis and accompanying cryptocurrency bull run.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our inability to leave our homes this past year, as if <\/span>trapped<\/span><\/a> in Edward Hopper paintings, was diametrically contrasted with crypto and decentralized finance\u2019s explosive charge into the public consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a visual journalist, I have recently been capturing the trickle-down effects of this Herculean revolution, using a projector to superimpose what I was seeing in my head last spring onto the world around me.<\/span><\/p>\n

This ongoing photo-projection series, which currently incorporates charts and data from around a dozen different tokens, has so far taken me across two continents. I\u2019ve projected Polkadot candles onto 300-year-old buildings in Barcelona; I\u2019ve cast Litecoin prices onto the torsos of blockchain enthusiasts in small New York City walk-ups; I\u2019ve covered coworking spaces near Boston with Aave data; and I\u2019ve even lit up a forest near Canada with Stellar Lumen charts.<\/span><\/p>\n

And now by <\/span>taking<\/span><\/a> direct requests on social media, I aim to craft more images around tokens that have been stirring in the minds of others.<\/span><\/p>\n

But creating this first iteration of the series has also been an odd, unexpected form of personal therapy, having lost a rather hefty sum earlier this year due to my own shaky inexperience. And though my funds may have tanked, my enthusiasm for the larger decentralized finance movement has not.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having spoken to many other investors glued to their screens during the past year, I know I\u2019m not alone in seeing these phantom charts. So, why are some of us seeing crypto in the world around us when we step away from our computers? And why are we being haunted by these faint, floating lines and numbers?<\/span><\/p>\n

Is this addiction? Is it infatuation? Insanity?<\/span><\/p>\n

The answers to these questions actually have more to do with that paused video game I mentioned earlier than I would have ever imagined.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"The
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The Bitcoin Effect \/ Matt Danzico<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Like many others in the media industry, I was grounded during the height of the pandemic, banished to tapping away on my laptop at home.<\/span><\/p>\n

But instead of spending my free time <\/span>doomscrolling<\/span><\/a> or chatting with long-lost colleagues on Zoom, I was swept up by an international event of a different sort: a blockchain boom.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having missed most of the 2017 surge, I traded crypto endlessly early this year, discussed the technology ferociously and lapped up every ounce of information I could find. I was green and going through the motions of my newest obsession.<\/span><\/p>\n

Often exhausted by the day\u2019s mental gymnastics, I\u2019d go to bed buzzing, my brain full of numbers and frying like an egg in a pan freshly off the stove.<\/span><\/p>\n

For years, <\/span>immersion<\/span><\/a> was a big part of my work \u2014 relocating to Asia, Africa or Eastern Europe for weeks or months at a time. But my infatuation with crypto quickly snowballed and became worrisome to those around me. The isolation of the pandemic was exacerbating my tendency toward tunnel vision, which is beneficial in the world of photography and filmmaking but problematic when trading one\u2019s own cash.<\/span><\/p>\n

And during some of those darker winter evenings under our brick Catalan ceilings at home in Spain, the charts and volume data from my last trades would visit me like phantoms in the room, fluttering and stinging the back of my mind\u2019s eye, while my body thrashed anxiously around under the sheets next to my wife.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u201cWedge. That\u2019s a falling wedge,\u201d I\u2019d mouth into the night. Was I whispering aloud? Was I dreaming, or was I awake?<\/span>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whether I made or lost hundreds that day \u2014 or even thousands \u2014 anxiety and excitement feel the same when you haven\u2019t slept in days and a pandemic is snatching up friends just beyond your front door.<\/span><\/p>\n

I still feel a debilitating sense of naivety when I think about all those I believed online who recited the crypto anthem: \u201cWe\u2019re all going to make it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

By late May, I was left with excuses to formulate, an empty wallet to consider and a new raging obsession that seemed to be spawning low-grade hallucinations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now safely on the other side and with my tunnel vision cast back upon my career, I\u2019m excited to ask: What the hell was going on during those tumultuous months indoors?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"The
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The Binance Effect \/ Matt Danzico<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Like some of you in parts of Europe and America, I was shot back out into the streets rather abruptly in late spring, lucky enough to be flanked by vaccine tents, first responders and reopening restaurants. But the moody, dramatic lights of Catalonia flipped back on just as Ether and Bitcoin flipped out, their value plunging even as humans emerged from our enforced social hibernation.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the height of the pandemic, the total value of cryptocurrencies saw a spiked increase from roughly $242 billion to about $2.43 trillion. And only shortly after, the market <\/span>tanked<\/span><\/a> by $1.3 trillion.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lot of money, yes. But more worrying to me was the number of real people behind those figures \u2014 families and bank accounts shaken by the volatility of the market.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the first meals outside our home was spent eating tapas and observing a friend and her mother peering anxiously at Binance charts on their respective phones.<\/span><\/p>\n

Early this summer, Crypto.com <\/span>estimated<\/span><\/a> the number of crypto traders to be above 220 million, having doubled in a matter of six months. Looked at another way, one in every 35 people on planet Earth was trading cryptocurrency at one point this year. And many of us have begun seeing that figure play out on a local level.<\/span><\/p>\n

This winter, from my studio in Barcelona\u2019s Gracia neighborhood, I could hear the hoots, boos and caws normally reserved for FC Barcelona football being belted from a neighbor\u2019s open balcony each time Ether jumped sharply.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t until the big dip on Tuesday, May 18 of this year, that the localism of these stats sunk in. That evening, I witnessed a group of well-dressed Spanish 30-somethings stumbling down Carrer de Francisco Giner, nursing their phones against their chests and bellowing over crypto\u2019s swift plunge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though no significant statistics have been compiled on cryptocurrency addiction, a small study in Turkey recently <\/span>found<\/span><\/a> that out of 300 crypto investors polled, 2% displayed signs of gambling addiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIf the figures from that humble study were extrapolated to represent the world\u2019s 221 million traders, that would imply roughly 4.5 million crypto investors could be showing signs of gambling addiction.<\/span>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That number needs to be taken with an enormous grain of salt, considering the poll\u2019s size and geographic concentration. But for perspective, 4.5 million people is roughly a third of those who die each year around the globe from drugs and alcohol.<\/span><\/p>\n

And why not use the analogy? The 24-hour market, the ease of accessibility, the never-ending rushes of adrenaline each time the market spikes \u2014 this all has an effect on our behavior and opportunities for addiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

Across the Atlantic in the United States, where one in three people are now showing signs of clinical anxiety or depression, near-universal access to such addictive technologies has the potential to become seriously problematic.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"The
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The Ripple Effect \/ Matt Danzico<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Crypto addictions are becoming so rampant that a commercial industry is forming around them. The treatment for cryptocurrency addiction is often similar to Alcoholics Anonymous, where patients are encouraged to begin a 12-step program, while in-patient treatment can cost into the tens of thousands.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCrypto trading is very similar to day trading or gambling,\u201d says <\/span>Dylan Kerr<\/span><\/a>, a private clinical addiction counselor.<\/span><\/p>\n

And a 2019 report from the National Institutes of Health <\/span>agrees<\/span><\/a>, saying \u201cTrading cryptocurrencies is strongly associated with problem gambling severity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kerr, who is currently serving at a clinic in Thailand and often works on the frontiers of new addictions, warns that ever since 2018, he\u2019s seen a tremendous spike in those seeking counseling for their crypto addictions.<\/span><\/p>\n

But unlike more traditional counselors, Kerr takes Bitcoin as payment.<\/span><\/p>\n

You might think that ironic, but I believe it speaks to his understanding of the permanence of the issue he\u2019s addressing. After all, which currency do you think those trading the U.S. dollar on Wall Street use to pay their therapists and counselors?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI see it as a valuable asset,\u201d he adds, noting that \u201cCryptocurrencies are very necessary economic items for the redistribution of wealth, especially for millennials.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese [his clients] are often novices who got lucky and hit it big quickly,\u201d Kerr specifies.<\/span><\/p>\n

And as for my chart-infused dreams, he agrees \u2014 from his desk in Thailand \u2014 that my seeing these crypto mirages may have been a sign of an approaching addiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard about these dreams before. It\u2019s the product of obsessional thinking,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not new information, however. In fact, even the cryptocurrency rehabilitation program that opened at <\/span>Castle Craig Hospital in Scotland<\/span><\/a> in 2018 is becoming a fixture in the blockchain community. The hospital now sports its own YouTube channel alongside crypto influencers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Treatment centers in America are also beginning to think about cryptocurrency. The <\/span>Maryland Addiction Recovery Center<\/span><\/a> is seeing a wave of investor inquiries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zach Snitzer, co-founder of the recovery center in Maryland, explains that:<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt is now becoming part of the lifestyle of abuse. There is drug abuse, gambling abuse and issues around trading cryptocurrency. They are now a part of the larger tapestry of behavioral health.\u201d<\/span>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIt snowballs. It becomes less about the money they are making than the rush of emotions they are feeling from that behavior,\u201d he adds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Questions around crypto addiction and the habit of near-constant checking of prices are also mooning this year on Reddit.<\/span><\/p>\n

A quick search will <\/span>reveal<\/span><\/a> a thread emblazoned with the question: \u201cIs anyone else dreaming about the charts and checking their crypto portfolios when they first wake up?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Another post, which received over 800 comments, was <\/span>prompted<\/span><\/a> by the query: \u201cAnyone else got majorly addicted to checking your phone every 10 minutes when they just started with crypto?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One Redditor replied: \u201cI dream of checking the phone just to wake up and go check the phone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Another simply posted: \u201cUr new?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Nailed it.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"The
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The Aave Effect \/ Matt Danzico<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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